Orkut Blog

Ensuring more safety to your account

2012-09-27T12:54:00.001-03:00

At Google, we take account security very seriously. Our team of experts work daily to ensure that your personal information is protected. One of the additional tools we've created to give you even more control over your account security is email verification.

Why is it important to have a verified e-mail?
- It allows you to regain access to your account if you forget your password
- It ensures that your account notifications are not sent to others
- It lets you use the Orkut chat to talk to your friends

Aiming to increase the security of your account, we'll start showing a message to all Orkut users who don't have verified e-mails asking them to do so. The e-mail verification, which has been optional until now, will soon become mandatory.

If you're seeing the message asking to verify your e-mail but don't know how to do it, don't worry: we've created a step by step guide in the Help Center that will help you through it.

Verifying your e-mail is only a initial step to make your account safe. If you'd like to learn more ways to increase your account's safety, check out this article in our Help Center.

Posted by Otavio Silva, Google Product Manager

Orkut Tip: How to post to Orkut and Google+ at the same time

2012-08-16T17:01:00.000-03:00

Hi all,

We hope you are enjoying the cool new features we launched last week. However, we know it can be difficult to keep 2 social products updated at the same time. If only there was a way to post to Orkut and Google+ at the same time.

Well, there is!

With the new Google Bar in Orkut, you can not only check your Google+ notifications but also use the Google+ share box to post to your Google+ circle.

But how can I post to Orkut too?

Easy! If you have linked your Orkut and Google+ account, you can automatically share your public Google+ posts to Orkut. To enable that, just follow these simple steps:

1. Go to Orkut settings, under the gear icon.

2. Click on the Google+ tab.

3. Select the box "If I share a post on Google+ publicly, also post it on Orkut".

4. Your Orkut stream will look like this:

Please note that you must have previously linked your Orkut and Google+ profiles to be able to do this.

If you have any questions about Orkut, please visit Orkut Help Forum.

If you have any questions about Google+, please visit Google + Help Forum.

Posted by Bernardo Barlach, Google team.

Interesting Google+ content on your Orkut profile

2012-08-09T16:56:00.001-03:00

There are a lot of cool things happening on Google+. Celebrities, companies and personalities have been using the platform to share their updates, photos and videos. It's high quality content that might also interest you, Orkut user.

That's why we've launched a new feature called "You might like on Google+": on this section, we'll show you Google+ pages and profiles that may interest you. These suggestions are based on your Google+ circles and your Orkut friends.

If the "You might like on Google+" feature doesn't appear on your profile it's because we need an "extra push" to determine your interests. Just circle some new people on Google+ and the suggestions will come!

Posted by Maira Nascimento, Google Engineer

The new Google Toolbar for Orkut

2012-08-01T17:26:00.003-03:00

We launched some cool new features for Orkut users this week. A new layout is now available for users with linked Orkut and Google+ profiles: the new Google
Toolbar for Orkut.

The new Google Toolbar for Orkut is highly integrated with Google+ and allows you to check your Google+ notifications, reply to any comment on your Google+ profile and share new content with your Google+ circles while you are on Orkut.

If your Orkut and Google+ profiles are linked, you will see that the new Google Toolbar for Orkut has some great new features.

• Easy search access on Orkut: Search from any Orkut page.
• Google+ post box: Share on Google+ from Orkut.
• Google+ notifications: Interact with your Google+ tasks while on Orkut.

Remember that the Google Toolbar for Orkut is only available to users that have linked Orkut and Google+ profiles. See our FAQ to learn more about linking your Orkut and Google+ profiles.

So now it's your turn: What do you think? Give us your feedback.

Posted by Diego Fernandes, Google Engineer

Upgrade your Orkut Profile

2012-07-31T13:11:00.000-03:00

We've recently made it possible for you to link your Orkut and Google+ profiles.
Starting today, linked profiles will provide access to an upgraded Orkut profile.
Upgraded profiles will feature the same cover photo of your Google+ public profile and will enable you to further express your interests, personality and style. In addition, your latest Google+ photos can be posted to a beautiful album which makes it easier for your Orkut friends to see your latest snapshots.
If you would like to know more about this feature, check our frequently asked questions about linking your Orkut and Google+ profiles.

Improve your Orkut ! Link your profiles and enjoy a beautiful and special online experience.

These features will gradually become available to all users.

Posted by Koji Pereira, Google Designer

A pleasant space decorated with tiles

2012-07-04T17:13:00.000-03:00

This is a great opportunity for you to redecorate your home, or better, your Orkut. Patterns are an interesting and quick way to make everything look new, with a clean appearance and greater emphasis on content. So try them out, and share with your friends these new themes!

Posted by Koji Pereira, Google Designer

Discovering the activities of community members

2012-06-20T12:17:00.001-03:00

Have you ever wondered who the most influential users in a particular community are? How active a certain user is in a community, and how much impact his/her participation has on it?

Next time you’re reading a community topic or poll, hover your mouse over someone’s picture to learn about how that user has been contributing to that community. You'll be able to see how many topics and polls that user has created (and replied to), as well as how many comments, likes and votes his/her posts have received.

Follow the most active members in your communities and try to become one yourself!

Posted by Daniel Fireman, Google Engineer

Discovering the most popular posts of any given topic

2012-06-06T19:39:00.001-03:00

Topics in Orkut communities are known to contain interesting and relevant information. Every now and then we come across amazing replies within those topics. With the current functions of communities, some of the most interesting posts tend to get lost in topics with multiple replies. If only there was a way to highlight those amazing messages...

As of today, replies flagged by users as the most interesting will appear in a special section of the topic page:

You can also help flag them by clicking on the "like" button of these fun and interesting posts so that others can see them too!

Posted by Guilherme Ferreira, Google Engineer

World Environment Day

2012-06-04T21:10:00.000-03:00

Today, June 5th, is World Environment Day. Its celebration began in 1972 at a UN (United Nations) conference. The aim of this conference was to raise worldwide awareness concerning the environment.

Do you know what environment means? According to Wikipedia, it is: "The biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organisms, or population, and includes particularly the factors that have an influence in their survival, development and evolution."

Regardless of the definition you choose, you must understand that preserving the environment today is essential for a healthy, natural resource rich planet tomorrow. So then, shall we begin?

Posted by Koji Pereira, Google Designer

Share your Google+ public posts with your Orkut friends

2012-05-29T17:22:00.000-03:00

Every day we see more Orkut users creating their profiles on Google+ and sharing lots of interesting content there. Now we are making it easier for Orkut users who also use Google+ to share their updates with their Orkut friends by linking their profiles.

After you link your profiles, your Orkut profile photo and name will be the same as your Google+ photo and name. In addition, you will be able to share all your public Google+ posts with your Orkut friends. Your Google+ posts to limited audience or specific circles will remain on Google+ only and will be subject to your privacy settings. As a result, linking your profiles will also make it easier for your Orkut friends to find you on Google+.

Linking your Orkut and Google+ profiles is optional and you can decide whether you want to do it or not. In addition, even after you link them, you can decide if you want to share your public posts with your Orkut friends or not just by accessing your Orkut settings.

Share your opinions about it on the official Orkut Community.

Posted by Diego Fernandes, Google Engineer.

Find community topics, faster!

2012-05-16T13:08:00.002-03:00

While thousands of users search for information on Orkut at any given moment, thousands of topics are created every minute. Wait, did I really say minute?

With this in mind, we are excited to announce that users can now search for Orkut community topics and find updated results about topics they enjoy most, in just a matter of minutes.

Happy searching!

Posted by Daniel Fireman and Ralf Wildenhues, Google Engineers

Hot topics!

2012-05-10T17:53:00.000-03:00

Every day, many interesting discussions arise on our Orkut communities. Whenever we want
to join them, we have to access each of our communities and search for the most recently
created topics. With so much content, sometimes an interesting topic is overlooked simply
because we forgot to check in our communities.

As of today, we will show you a list of the “hottest” topics that are trending in your

communities to guarantee you never lose another interesting discussion. These hot topics can

be found on a new tab, called explore, that we added right on your main communities page.

In addition, you can also filter your results and select to view yesterday’s or last week’s hot
topics.

This way, it will be even easier to discover the most interesting discussions trending in your
communities!

Posted by Maira Nascimento, Google Engineer

Share your community posts with your friends!

2012-05-09T17:05:00.000-03:00

Sometimes, we are engaged in a discussion in one of our favorite communities and we want all of our friends from this community to join in. Today we’re making this super easy for you.
Whenever you create a new community topic or reply, you will have the option to send an update to all your friends who are also members of that community.

This way your friends can always keep up with what you post and maybe find some new and interesting discussions.

Posted by Marco Wisniewski, Google Engineer

Explore our communities

2012-04-26T18:21:00.000-03:00

We are now making it super easy to find all the great content related to your favorite topics on Orkut. In select communities, you will find a new box that shows the communities similar to the one you are currently visiting. This makes it easier to explore the enormous amount of content available on Orkut.

Similar communities are those that have a significant amount of members in common, which usually flags topics of common interest.

Try it out, we are certain that you will find new communities that you didn't even know existed!

Posted by Marco Wisniewski and Bruno Gusmão, Google Engineers

Listen to your favorite music on your Orkut

2012-04-10T12:36:00.000-03:00

What could be better than listening to your favorite favorite music? Sharing the experience with your friends! Now you can do this directly from your Orkut page: just type in the artist or band name on the YouTube search bar while we select a playlist for you to enjoy. You can watch your favorite video clips while using Orkut, or you can minimize and leave them as background music.

In addition, the songs you listen to will be posted as an activity onto your homepage, that way your friends can also listen along.

We hope you like it!

Posted by Eduardo Ferreira, Google engineer.

And now, the new Orkut!

2012-04-04T16:12:00.003-03:00

Hello Orkut Users!

If you use the old version of Orkut, you've noticed that some pages look different today. Your interface may be much cleaner and simpler. You may have noticed you have more options for personalization. You also may notice that moving around your profile may be much faster. That’s because starting today and over the next few months, we will begin rolling out the new version of the platform to all Orkut users.

You’ll remember that about 3 years ago, we announced that we were testing a new version of Orkut that would be faster and easier to use. We also gave you the option of choosing whether to stay with the version of Orkut that you were familiar with, or to move on to the adventure of the latest platform. Since then, we’ve continued to experiment and update Orkut based on your feedback so that we could offer the best experience possible. And you responded. Now most of you are using the newest version of Orkut, and over the next few months everyone will be using the new platform.

We realize that for some of you, this will take getting used to. However, we want to be able to offer everyone access to some of the exciting things we’re working on and will be bringing to Orkut in the future, at the same time. We look forward to your feedback! It will help us continue to make Orkut a place where you feel comfortable sharing with your friends and experiencing the best Google has to offer. If you have any questions or comments, find us on our Official Orkut Community! We look forward to hearing from you.

Posted by Hermes de Freitas, Bárbara Veloso, and Natália Duarte, Orkut team

Reggae for autumn

2012-03-30T17:42:00.010-03:00

Novelties and good news just keep coming on Orkut. We released a new theme upon the countless requests from those who are more than familiar with Bob Marley, who enjoy reggae music, and who knows, maybe even have dreads themselves. Another novelty is a theme for the autumn season, a time when nature puts on its own spectacular show. Now it's just about experimenting and enjoying these two new themes: reggae and autumn, perhaps to the sound of Roots, Rock and Reggae.

Posted by Koji Pereira, Google designer.

Themes, now available in your community

2012-03-29T21:42:00.000-03:00

With our eyes constantly on Orkut users, we've noticed that they love to customize their profiles. We are always trying to offer new and interesting themes since they are one of the most frequently requested options. We are happy to announce the introduction of theme options in communities.

If you are the owner of a community, you can now click on the "community themes" link and install a theme that best suits your community interface. Experiment with them and post your opinion on our forum!

Posted by Alberto Miranda, Google Engineer

Here are your fans

2012-03-14T16:58:00.003-03:00

Now you can tell your friends how you feel by using Orkut’s recently launched Vibes. We are happy to announce the return of a feature that was highly requested by long-time Orkut users. Yes, your fans are back and better than ever:

It's easy to become somebody's fan, just go to the person’s profile and click on the star, it will change colors and you will be added to his/her fans list;
Every time someone becomes your fan, there will be an update on Orkut where your friends can comment on and enjoy;
Older fans will automatically appear in this updated version, in other words, your fan club can only grow!

Posted by Koji Pereira, Google Designer.

International Women’s Day

2012-03-08T00:10:00.001-03:00

The creation of a specific date to recognize women started in the context of the Industrial Revolution and World War I, period when the female labor was introduced to the industrial field. The harsh and dangerous work conditions were frequently questioned by feminists groups aiming for equal rights.

The biggest and most important manifest was held in Russia when women went out on the streets to demand equality. Their action got traction and got stronger, and ended up anticipating the Russian Revolution in March 8th,1917.

On December of 1977 the International Women’s Day was made official by the United Nations in order to remember the feminine importance in the society, politics and economy.

To celebrate this amazing history, we created a doodle that represents the diversity and the worldwide importance of women from all countries and ethnics. They fought for and conquered fundamental changes for the world as we know it today. Congratulations to all women!

Posted by Maíra Nascimento, Google Engineer

What is your Vibe?

2012-03-07T13:10:00.004-03:00

Do you know that Orkut friend who you always wanted to show how cool you think he is? Now in Orkut you have 11 different ways to show how you feel about a person. To express your Vibe for someone, access your friend’s profile and click “Vibe?” in the left sidebar, under his/her photo. Every time you want to check what they think about you or about your friends, click on the number beside the “Vibe?” link (it will only appear if there is at least one Vibe).

Vibe is how you see a person. If your perception ever change, you will be able to change the Vibe you set for your friends whenever you want. Vibes received by your friends create activities in your home page so you always know about the different Vibes that are happening around you.

Oh, you can set a Vibe for yourself too so you tell your friends your today’s mood :)

Posted by Hermes Freitas, Google Engineer

A New Way to Answer Scraps

2012-02-17T11:44:00.001-02:00

We’ve just launched a convenient way to reply to your friend's scraps: simply reply to the scrap email notification and you're done! This is very handy since you can quickly reply to Orkut scraps without ever leaving your email client.

For security reasons, at this moment this feature is enabled only for Gmail and Yahoo! Mail users. More domains to come, stay tuned!

Daniel Fireman and Ralf Wildenhues, Google Engineers

Among soccer memories and extreme sports adrenaline

2012-02-09T15:07:00.000-02:00

Once many of you enjoy sports and try to live a healthy life, we decided to create two new themes with an inspiration in sports. One of them brings up radical sports figures to your screen while the other one is fully illustrated with great soccer players from the past so you can always enjoy famous soccer stars from all time in your Orkut.

Try and share this fun experience.

Posted by Koji Pereira, Google Designer

Hashtags in Orkut communities

2012-02-06T18:11:00.001-02:00

Our team continues working hard to improve Orkut communities, and today we are introducing a new feature: support for hashtags.

From now on, whenever you're reading a topic, all hashtags will be automatically highlighted and will link to our improved search page, where other posts with the same tag will show up. To create a hashtag, just type # before the hashtag (no spaces allowed), for instance if you post a new topic or a reply and write #hashtagsonorkut, this hashtag will be automatically highlighted. We hope that this gives you a new way of exploring all the content in our communities and that this lets you find what you want more easily.

For now, new hashtags take around one day to show up in search results. We will keep you updated as we continue improving this.

Try it and tell us what you think. Just use #hashtagsonorkut on your new topics and replies in any community!

Posted by Marco Wisniewski, Google Engineer

Between the electronic beat and the countryside

2012-01-26T15:11:00.000-02:00

We are excited with the feedback from our users about the new themes we have released lately. Because of this and following some suggestions from our users we now present another two new themes! For those who enjoy electronic music we have a great new Electronic theme. And for the ones aiming for the calmness of the countryside, we have a theme to remember the importance of taking a time to enjoy all that life has to offer.

Enjoy the new themes Drum Machine and Countryside!

Posted by Koji Pereira, Google Designer